


burning down bridges

by transkylo (captainandor)



Series: when you know, you know [3]
Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Bisexuality, Future Fic, Gen, Liv is 16 or 17 here, M/M, Slice of Life, dad robert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-07 23:41:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8820931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainandor/pseuds/transkylo
Summary: Liv is frowning at him when he lifts his eyes again. “So…you pretended you were straight?”“Not exactly, no,” Robert thinks back to all the one night stands, forcibly dismissed, never dwelled upon, “I did a lot of lying to myself, over the years,”“What changed?”Robert smiles, just at the corner of his lip, “Your brother,”





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, this was born out of my need for Liv to be queer, and also my need for more Dad Robert in canon. Emmerdale writers, take heed. 
> 
> Idk about other people but if I'd had someone to discuss things with when I first realised I was bi it would have saved me years of internalised biphobia, and I'm willing to bet Rob feels the same

Robert’s observant, always has been; more so now that he’s pretty much become a stepfather to a teenager whose lying skills rival his own – so it’s only to be expected that it’s him who notices first. Liv’s been acting weirdly for weeks, and it’s clear something’s on her mind. 

When Robert brings it up in conversation with his husband one night over dinner, when Liv has shut herself away in her room listening to music loud enough to rattle the picture frames from the wall, Aaron just snorts, and gestures at the ceiling with his fork. 

“She’s a teenager,” he says, “They’re supposed to act weird.” He eats a mouthful of mashed potato, looking thoughtful, before his brow creases, and Robert feels bad for bringing it up in the first place, “You don’t think – there’s something _serious_ goin’ on, do ya?” he asks, voice thin. 

Robert knows where Aaron’s mind’s gone, instantly. Right back to his own teenage years – Robert had done the same, before he’d managed to convince himself that it was possibly an overreaction. He shakes his head, “No! No, you’re right,” he says, “It’s probably nothing. Her GCSE’s are likely stressing her out,”

“Yeah,” Aaron frowns again, pushing some carrots around half-heartedly on his plate, smothering them in gravy, “Probably.” He doesn’t look convinced, though, and the next day Robert comes home to Aaron quizzing Liv about school. 

“I’m just askin’!” Aaron’s saying, when Robert walks in the door, “You don’t need to get snappy with me. Have you been doin’ anything we should know about?” 

Liv looks incredulous. “Like what?!” 

Aaron shoots Robert a look, one that says _back me up here, would you?_ , and says to Liv, “I dunno, just, you’ve been sneakin’ round an awful lot and it would be better if you told us now than let us find out via the school or – fuckin, Bernice, again, Liv. With the _police_ ,” 

“We’re just worried, Liv,” Robert adds, soft, “We’re not accusing you of anything,” he pauses and looks at Aaron, “But if there is something, we’d like to think you’d feel comfortable telling us, alright?” 

Liv crosses her arms. “Fine, whatever. Can I go now?” 

Aaron sighs. “Yeah, alright. Don’t be home too late,” 

“See ya,” Liv shoots back, giving Robert an odd look as she passes. The door slams shut on her way out, and Aaron deflates.

*** 

It’s two weeks before Robert manages to corner her alone, after she’s continued to act completely out of sorts. It’s obvious that something is bothering her, and he wants to get to the bottom of it before things blow out of proportion. He only needs to look at Aaron to be reminded of how bad things can get when they’re not properly addressed, and soon.

They’ve sent Aaron out to pick up dinner, in the agreement that Robert does the dishes afterwards. Once the front door is shut and the oven’s switched on, he climbs the stairs quietly, listening for any sounds coming from Liv’s room. It’s silent, eerily so, and he pauses on the landing outside her door for a few minutes before he knocks. 

He hears her sigh, and the mattress creaks. “What is it?” she asks, as he pushes the door open a few inches and pokes his head around. 

“Can I come in?”

She waves her hand, “You’re already halfway there,” she says, “So yeah, on you go,” 

Electing to ignore this, he clicks the door shut behind him, picking his way over discarded clothes and school books until he’s at the edge of her bed, where he sits once she’s drawn her legs up to her chest, creating space. Her phone is by her side, headphones a tangled mess on the covers as if she’s just pulled them from her ears. 

“I don’t know if Aaron’s tried talking to you again, since the other week,” he begins, and Liv groans. 

“Rob,” she interrupts, “For the last time, I’m not doin’ anything illegal, alright?” 

“I didn’t say you were,” he says, “But something’s obviously up and it’s really not good to keep things bottled away, you know? They’ll only get worse,”

She shuffles, pulling her knees closer and resting her chin on the tops of them. Her expression is guarded – a look he knows well. He’s seen it on Aaron enough times. 

“C’mon, Liv,” Robert says, keeping his tone as light as he can, “How am I supposed to help if I don’t know what the matter is?” 

“How did you know?” she asks, keeping her eyes down. Robert watches her reach a hand down and fiddle with the edge of her duvet cover. 

“How did I know what?” he frowns, lost. 

Her shoulders and chest rise with an inhale, and she looks like she’s steeling herself for something. He’s seen her nervous before – not often – but he knows the signs. 

“That you – you know,” she pauses, huffs out a breath, “That you’re bi,” 

“Oh,” _oh_. Robert sits up, straightening his spine, “Is this what’s been bothering you?”

She nods, hesitantly, “Not botherin’ me so much as – I’ve been thinkin’, a lot. And I just – wondered,” 

He studies her expression for a moment; notes the slight crease in her brow, the way she won’t quite sit still, the duvet rustling as she fidgets. He remembers being her own age, terrified of what his attraction to boys meant, terrified of his dad’s reaction when he walked into the room that night – wondering, for so many years, if there was something wrong with him, if there was something he’s done to deserve this – this hatred for himself, this shame he buried everything under for so long. Internalised biphobia is a curse, and he doesn’t want Liv to go through that. 

He’ll do everything he can to stop it. 

“I don’t know.” He says, with a shrug, “I always liked boys too. Didn’t think much of it until I was fifteen. My dad –” Robert pauses, looks down at his hands for a second, “He didn’t approve.” 

Liv is frowning at him when he lifts his eyes again. “So…you pretended you were straight?” 

“Not exactly, no,” Robert thinks back to all the one night stands, forcibly dismissed, never dwelled upon, “I did a lot of lying to myself, over the years,” 

“What changed?” 

Robert smiles, just at the corner of his lip, “Your brother,” 

Liv rolls her eyes and smacks him on the knee, without any real force, “Sap.” She says, “So…can you like one, more than another? Like. D’you like girls more, or,”

Robert blinks at her. It’s something he’s asked himself hundreds of times before, wondering to himself if the fact he’d been with more women meant he was't bi, really, and that his attraction to men was just a bit of fun, something on the side. _I’m straight,_ he’d told Aaron once, _And Chrissie doesn't need to know everything about me._

“There’s no right or wrong way to be bi, Liv,” Robert says. 

“I guess,” she says, hesitantly, and starts picking at some loose stitching on the bedcovers still bunched up in her hands, “So, why’d it take you so long to come to terms with it? Were it cos of your dad?” 

Robert thinks back to his conversation with Aaron in the woods. It had felt like a dam bursting that day, pressure building up and up inside his chest until he could no longer hold any of it in. Spilling it all without much care or thought felt like release. He feels a lot more in control now. Liv doesn’t need to know everything – only what Robert thinks will help her. 

“It was because of a lot of things,” he says, “But I always wanted to impress him, you know? Be the person he wanted me to be, and liking boys didn’t fit into his picture-perfect idea of a farmer’s son.” He pauses to push a few strands of hair back from Liv’s forehead, hanging loose from her ponytail and obscuring her face, “I was scared. Couldn’t do anything right for the life of me – it’s always been that way. I disappoint everyone I come close to, and I thought that, at least if I fell in love with the right girl and got married, things would finally be okay. My dad would be proud of me,” 

“But then you met Aaron,” Liv prompts. 

“Yeah,” Robert smiles, pleased when Liv returns the gesture, “And I realised that being yourself is the best thing you can do. So if you wanna lie and cheat and steal,” he pauses, throwing her a look, and she grins, cheeks rounding, “Then, well. Only the law can stop ya. But nobody can take your sexuality away from you, Liv, because it belongs to you and you only.” 

Her smile softens and slips away, and she pulls the strand of hair loose again, twirls it absently between her index and middle finger. “What if people think it’s just a phase? Cos of my age?”

“Then I’ll be having a good talking to ‘em, and they’ll be sleeping on it in the boot of my car,” 

They laugh, though Robert’s more than half serious. 

“So,” Robert says, after a few minutes of companionable silence, “What’s brought this on? Anything Aaron and I need to be knowing about?” he bumps her shoulder, and she elbows him sharply in the ribs. 

“No,” she insists, too quickly, then, “There’s someone at school, maybe. I dunno.” 

“Well, when you do know, I’m here, and Aaron’s here, if you need anything.” He steals a glance at his watch, ticking just after seven, “Speaking of, Aaron’ll be back any minute with our curries, so I’d best go put the plates in the oven or he’ll have my head on one of them, if that’s everything?”

She nods and he stands, gently ruffling her hair as he passes on his way back to the bedroom door, covered in posters. 

“Robert,” she says, as he steps out into the hall. He pauses and looks back over his shoulder, Liv ducks her head, “Thank you.” She tells him, sincerely. 

He smiles. “Any time, Liv,”

*** 

He’s just nudging the oven door shut with his hip when the door opens, Aaron bundling in with two carrier bags full of indian takeaway. Robert crosses the room to meet him, taking one of the bags and leaning in to meet Aaron’s kiss.

“That were quick,” he comments over his shoulder as he carries the food through to the countertop, setting it down and opening the bag, his stomach giving a grumble as the smell of food reaches his nose. He hasn’t eaten since breakfast, he realises, aside from a handful of tea biscuits that he found in the cupboard for lunch in between skype meetings. 

Aaron shrugs, stopping beside him to unpack the other bag. “Place was empty. Just as well, could practically hear your stomach rumbling from out front,” 

“Ha,” Robert says, elbowing him. “I never got a proper lunch, unlike some. We don’t all have Vic bringing us bags of food from her van,” 

“Yeah yeah, poor Rob, wasting away here in a pub, which has a fully functioning kitchen, ya know,” 

Robert ignores this in favour of going to the cutlery drawer to find some serving spoons for plating up the food. He taps Aaron none too lightly on the arm with it as he passes. He barely registers he’s humming under his breath as they fix the dinner until Aaron points it out. 

“What?” Robert says, looking up, “Oh. Just – good mood, is all,” he puts the naan out on the table and goes to the door to call up to Liv that the food’s ready. Aaron’s watching him with a suspicious look when he turns back around. 

“Any reason?” he tilts his head. 

His mind goes back to the sincerity in Liv’s eyes as she’d thanked him. He smiles at his husband. “Nothing in particular,” he says, and turns his smile on Liv when she appears in the doorway, shrugging on one of Aaron’s oversized hoodies for warmth. 

“Alright,” she says to her brother in greeting, though her eyes flicker briefly to meet Roberts as she heads for the table, sliding into her usual chair, “This smells amazing. I’m starved.” 

“Not you too,” Aaron says, frowning. 

Robert throws her an understanding look as he takes his own seat beside Aaron, picking up his fork, “In at the tea biscuits as well, were you?” he asks. 

Liv grins. “Yeah,” 

“Do I need to remind the both of ya that Marlon’s kitchen is _right there_ ,” Aaron pontificates this with a stab of his knife, to which Liv snorts, stuffing a piece of naan in her mouth. 

“He’s tryin’ a new menu,” she says, chewing, “’S all fancy stuff. Like, lobster. Dunno what Robert’s so fussy about, though, what with him bein’ all middle class and everythin',” 

He kicks at her under the table. “Oi,” he says, “Farmer’s son, me, I like my bangers and mash the same as everybody else," 

She just smiles at him, like butter wouldn’t melt. Sometimes, he knows, it wouldn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me on tumblr! My main is @aptanstjarna and my emmerdale sideblog is @depressivedingle


End file.
